Commodore
March 28, 2023

Tuesday 28 March – walk up cannibal gorge

Apologies up front for all the photos!

We woke up and could not believe the scenery, the bay was absolutely stunning and we had it all to ourselves. We decided to walk up to the water fall, so after breakfast we headed off in JeldiJeldi to the beach. The waves were breaking, so we slowed down and got swamped by a wave. Luckily we were still able to move, Rowan had read that you could tie up in the river which was a relief as we didn’t want to lug the boat up the beach. We finally made it into the calm of the river and found a coconut palm to tie onto. We found the couple who have area advantage, being the first small holding you come to on the path. We paid our money and were told to come back for a fruit feast on our way back. They warned us that the last 600m is closed off because of falling rocks, but that everyone goes all the way, we just shouldn’t do it if it is raining. This brought back memories of Kicker Rock!

This is also the valley that 8 and a bit years ago a German couple were visiting, a local guide offered to take the man on a goat hunt which he accepted. After a few hours the guide came back to the girlfriend and said she needed to come and help her boyfriend as he was sick. After following the guide into the bush he tied the girl up and raped her, she managed to escape and called the police. The police finally found her boyfriend in a cooking pot! What a horrific story, I think cannibalism used to be a thing centuries ago but this is too recent for comfort. In fact everyone is so friendly here it is hard to believe the story.

We had a wonderful walk which starts on the Royal road which is about 600 years old. Its amazing that the population of the Marquesas fell from 100000 to 2000 in the 1920’s. There was so much evidence of habitation, from a long time ago, on the walk up, now mainly over grown. We passed big stone wall areas, stone pits and stone edging for the Royal road. There were a few old Tiki, stone carvings along the way. The road was wonderfully shaded by trees most of the way and often with hibiscus, littering the way with flowers. A couple of times we had to resort to Maps.me, an amazing app that runs off line and shows dirt roads and paths, to find our way. We had to cross a small river a couple of times and we took advantage of quick dips as it was so hot.

We got to the sign warning us not to go further, but as it was a clear day we nervously ventured along the last 600m. The gorge got narrower and narrower, with high cliffs on both sides. until it came to a bigger clearing and a big pool. The waterfall has no water coming over at the moment and the big pool looked a bit stagnant, so not appealing for a swim which was just as well as we felt we shouldn’t linger too long as it definitely looked like falling rock territory. The actual waterfall was tucked into an even narrower gorge that is impassable.

We got out of the danger zone and rewarded ourselves with a nice long swim and finally made our way back. It was about a 13km walk but very gentle and shady, a really spectacular walk. As promised we returned to a table laden with fruit, a few pamplemousse cut up for us, mangoes, bananas, limes and delicious orange star fruit which were so tasty and juicy. Our French was very lacking, and she was laughing at us, Han finally discovered that she was laughing because she thought we were trying to eat all the fruit and that it was all ours to take away in two enormous bags.

We finally got back to JeldiJeldi and precariously made our way along the river, all of us pushing as the tide had gone out and there was not much river left. We finally got to a bit of beach and managed to drain all the water out, before getting our new wheels on and lugging the boat over a small spit of land, heading back to PolePole.

We could not believe it when we found 4 boats anchored around us, with a South African family with kids on one boat. We were distracted by two huge Manta rays that kept coming right up to the boat, Megan went in the water and they were not bothered. We had a magical time watching them.

Rain arrived at sunset which was a blessing as it cooled everything down. We were all pretty exhausted from a busy, energetic day.